


Anvil

by Waste Man (shockfactor)



Category: World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Character Study, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-19 11:55:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29874285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shockfactor/pseuds/Waste%20Man
Summary: For the first time in 4 years, Roderick Strong stands completely alone.
Relationships: Adam Cole & Bobby Fish & Kyle O'Reilly & Roderick Strong
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8





	Anvil

**Author's Note:**

> I enjoy wrestling as a hobby but I've only just found out there's a writing community for it.

Perhaps Roderick should have seen this coming.  
  
Adam was always a jealous guy. As long as Roderick had known him, Adam had been fiendishly jealous of the success of others, of their achievements, of the bonds they shared with one another. Time and time again, it had cost him dearly. It had cost him the loyalty of every friend he had in the business, hell, it brought him here to the WWE. 

But Roderick, Kyle, and Bobby all made it first. Roderick had gotten there the earliest, paved the way. Met some new faces, like Andrade, like SANITY, like Tye Dillinger, and come across some familiar ones, like Drew and Cedric and Kassius (man, it was hard not to call him Chris when the cameras were rolling.) Bobby and Kyle, who seemingly did everything together once they finally linked up, debuted together, one week after the other, to get buried by the same guy. Good old Aleister. Roderick hoped to get a shot at him one day, especially now that he seemed to think he was the hot shit with his eyepatch.

That was neither here nor there, now. Right now, he had other things to focus on.

When he first got to NXT, Roderick had stood right where he was now, in the gorilla position, in black and blue tights, waiting for his cue to go out and join Austin for what had to be the umpteenth time Aries and Strong rode out together. Austin had sort of lost the plot after that, but Roderick had persevered against all odds, he had to. Marina was, _is_ a strong woman, but Roderick was raised, however much you could call his shitty childhood being _raised_ , to be the man of the house, to be the breadwinner. His wife and kids wouldn't be changing addresses every few weeks, his wife and kids wouldn't be coming home to an empty table in an empty double-wide trailer, and his wife and kids wouldn't have to wonder if Daddy was gonna come home at the end of the night with track marks in his arms or blood pouring out of his nose (well, the latter might be a problem, but that's what this business did to you, and a broken nose was a bit different than blowing coke up it.) 

So he stood alone. Against Eric Young, against Bobby Roode, against Drew. He lost, again and again, alone, but he fought like a motherfucker every time. Marina was depending on him. The baby was depending on him, now. He wasn't going to just lay down and die, quit because he was on a skid.

He wouldn't stoop to Adam's level, he'd said, even when Adam, Bobby, and Kyle, the three people who knew him the best, the longest, came to him with an armband in hand and offered him a choice. How could he stoop to that level? He was better than that. He'd always been better than that, even when everything in him, around him, and that formed him told him that he wasn't. 

He'd lashed out at Adam. Joined Paul Ellering and the Authors of Pain to fight him, and he'd lost that too. 

Suddenly, the offer started looking a lot more attractive, because Hunter inherited one thing from his old man. If you don't bring money, you don't get money, and people weren't paying to watch Roderick lose again, and again, and again. The words echoed in his brain. Roode's claims of being the _real man_ , SANITY's taunts, Andrade's smug _fucking face_ , and above all, Adam's offer, pinballing in his head back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.

On the morning of April 7th, 2018, Roderick Strong got a picture. Marina was holding their little Troy in her arms, and beneath it, a message. _Good luck, Roddy._ _Knock 'em dead._

And at that moment, Roderick Strong knew that whatever respect for Pete Dunne he had was meaningless in the face of doing what had to be done. He knew Adam was bullshit, and that was exactly why he could trust him.

It didn't feel good turning on Pete, but Roderick had to admit, the armband sure was comfortable, and the awestruck look on Kyle and Adam's faces as he reached out his hand to them made him feel invincible. Like he was a conquering god, come down from Olympus to smite the impetuous mortals and give succor to his most devoted. 

God, he fucking sucked at the hand sign, but from the way Adam and Kyle beamed at him, and Kyle started shredding on the tag title like it was an air guitar, you would never know they thought so. The first thing they did when they got to the back was give him a massive hug, both promising him that he wouldn't regret this, that this was the best decision he'd ever made in his life. 

Ha. Fucking. Ha.

Bobby was hurt, his age starting to catch up to him, and MAN, it sucked to hear that. Roderick had gone to war with him a couple of times, but Bobby was a late bloomer. By the time he hit his stride in NOAH and ROH, Kyle and Roddy were still cutting their teeth. Now he was in his 40s, and his bump card was starting to fill up right quick. He said retirement wasn't far off, but 'not yet. Gotta hold it down for my boys.' Roderick and Kyle and Adam all encouraged him to keep fighting until he couldn't fight anymore, and in return, Bobby gave Roderick his blessing. 

The first time he teamed with Kyle in NXT, it clicked. They'd worked together in ROH, but when they started hitting Sick Kicks and legsweeps, combo holds and back suplexes in stereo, man, it was like they'd grown up in the same house with the same brain. It was fluid. Effortless. They were on top of the world, and Adam Cole stood at the top of the top, North American Championship in hand. 

Time passed, and the seasons changed, and faces came and went. Gone were Lars, Tye, Kassius, Bobby, and Drew, in were Keith Lee, Danny Burch, Oney Lorcan, Ricochet, and War Machine. Roddy had been in War Games already, and with the Undisputed Era, he suffered and clawed his way through three more. Unlike the first, where he was left alone to pick up the broken pieces, he had three brothers beside him. He won, and lost, the tag team titles, won, and lost, the North American title, fought on Smackdown Live in front of thousands of people against AJ Styles and Shinsuke Nakamura on the same show as Adam and wowed the world, and through it all, he'd found a brotherhood he'd been missing for years. No longer was he standing alone. He, Kyle, Bobby, and Adam stood as one, through thick and thin. They went to his wedding. They would visit with his wife and play games with his son. All of them loved him like a brother, and he loved them the same. Shit, even Adam.

Even Adam, after everything, had earned his trust again.

And then he'd broken it.

The first hint was when Dexter Lumis fucked with him, locked him and Bobby in the trunk of a car. Adam and Bobby said they were gonna get him psychotherapy, help him deal with the trauma, but Roderick picked up on it by the end of the session that it was fucking Kyle, not a fucking therapist. He hadn't said anything then. He'd seen it as friends helping friends, that they knew him better than any crack psychoanalyst on the Wellness Policy payroll would. They'd dealt with Dexter the best they could, and everyone had moved on, and the whole thing about therapy had gone over like a rib. 

This business with the fucking idiot MacAfee should have tipped him off too. The way Adam exploded on him on his show, the way he literally took this shit all the way to War Games, should have tipped Roderick off that Adam was starting to get back on his old shit. The way he looked at Roderick holding Troy in his arms, or the way he looked at Kyle and Bobby hugging it out after a tough match, or the way he stared holes through Karrion Kross, Tommaso, Johnny, Patrick, anybody he passed that had something, _anything_ that Adam didn't. 

But they'd won against MacAfee and his goons. They were done. It was over.

Or so they'd thought.

The attacks kept coming. Pete Dunne, of all the people, lined up with Pat, and while Roderick didn't understand why he wasn't back in England with his homies on NXT UK at first, it didn't take long to remember why. 

Pete never forgot what Roderick did. They weren't friends when the Dusty Cup had reached its climax, but they'd formed some kind of trust. One that Roddy shattered in an instant. Karma was, as they say, a big old bitch. 

Oney and Danny never forgot what Roderick did. Every humiliation they suffered at the hands of Undisputed Era, they were intent on delivering back to them. 

And now, Finn Balor was in the mix, trying to ruin everyone's fucking life, too. He stuck his talons into Kyle, degrading him and denigrating him while at the same time asking under his breath for the man's help against MacAfee's gang. Kyle had started changing long before the rest of UE did. When Tommaso started picking on Jake Atlas, one of the new guys, Kyle stood up to him. You know, Kyle O'Reilly, the diabetic who was constantly getting his ass kicked and looking like a clown doing it whenever a serious threat isolated him from the rest of the Era, stood up to Tommaso 'Psycho Killer', 'Ruiner of Friendships' and 'Receiver of Infinite Boos' Sicilian Kratos Ciampa. And backed him down. He'd gone to war with Finn and broken his jaw in three places, even though Finn gut-checked him hard enough to draw blood from the mouth and ended up breaking his jaw too.

That should have been it. The look Adam gave Finn Balor when he walked into the locker room to all but ask for Kyle's help should have told him everything, not because he looked at Finn like he hated him, but because when Finn left the room, the look didn't go away.

It went to Kyle. 

Adam needed control. That was what mattered the most to him. He needed to feel like he was in control of the situation with his life, with the Undisputed Era, and that was why that whole fiasco with the therapist happened. It was the reason why Bobby wasn't talking as much during promos, and why he was starting to talk about retirement a lot more quietly whenever Adam was around. It was the reason why he looked at Kyle like he wanted him to drop dead on the spot when he stood up for Finn, fought with him, and he'd dragged the Undisputed Era into his little good guy crusade, too. 

Roderick felt satisfaction beating the shit out of MacAfee and company, but it was also the right thing, and something about that felt...right. He had a son now. Maybe it was time to start setting a good example for Troy, so that he could tell him one day that his daddy wasn't always making the right choices, but he made them when it mattered. 

Adam had agreed to go out and stop them, but only because 'fuck Pat MacAfee', his own words. He had agreed to let Kyle and Roddy team with Finn, but only because 'fuck Pat MacAfee', and he had no sympathy, no words of comfort for Roderick when Kyle, his _brother_ , looked Roderick in the eye and said without even saying a word, ' _You're just as bad as he is._ '

When he superkicked Finn Balor out of his boots, Roderick finally realized that he had been wrong on April 7th, 2018. He didn't need this. He never had. He had made a mistake. 

He didn't need Adam Cole, Adam Cole needed the Undisputed Era. He needed their unquestioning loyalty, their unmoved conviction and subservience.

Roddy had wanted to get back on track after what happened with Dexter, and Adam had lied to him.

Kyle had wanted to do the right thing, and Adam stabbed him in the back. 

Or rather, he kicked him in the face. 

Roderick couldn't do anything. He just... watched it happen. It replayed in his mind every day and every night. Kept him awake. Kept him confused. He'd demanded answers from Adam, again and again and again and again until finally, one day, just about a week or so ago, Adam broke down. He went out to the ring (NOT to Roderick, and NOT to Kyle) to explain himself, after Roderick had went to BAT for him to try and get Kyle and Bobby to understand, because Bobby, torn up muscle and all, was just about ready to break his fucked up legs off in Adam Cole's 'Panama Prissy Ass' and Roderick was trying to hold the brotherhood together with spit, duct tape, and tears that only Marina and Troy got to see. 

When Adam started to speak, though, Roderick... well, he'd believed it. He'd believed it, because he had to. The look in Adam's eyes. Soulless, dead as he watched the footage of what he'd done, listened to the crowd, for the first time in a long time, unequivocally _boo_ him from behind the safety of their TV screens (man, this pandemic made things really weird). Millions of pixels, all filled with hatred and disgust for Adam Cole, and it hurt to watch, almost as much as it hurt to watch Kyle sulk in the back and to watch Bobby tear himself up over not being able to keep up with the rest of them. 

Roderick just _had_ to go out there. He had to do something. Say something. Let Adam know that it wasn't too late to fix all this. 

And _yet_. 

That was the exact logic that put him in that 'therapist's' office. That was the exact logic that sent him packing out of ROH without his belt, sent him out of PWG without his belt. How could he trust Adam? After everything? After this?

He gave him both barrels the moment he got a live mic. Called him out on shattering their trust, breaking their brotherhood, and then having the audacity to wait ten days to dare to address it, and to tell him the truth, to tell him about Kyle and his anger, and his pain, and the fact that no matter how much begging for forgiveness he did, Kyle was still going to come back for his pound of flesh because some habits never quite die. 

He didn't get his answer right away, because of course, Finn Balor decided to come out and fight Adam, because why the fuck not, and he had the _sheer audacity_ to shove Roderick headfirst into the COVID safety panels to go at him. Roderick didn't like Finn, not one bit, and yet Kyle's new, goody-two-shoes bit had rubbed on Roderick to the point where he felt like he had to step in. Of course, stepping in meant that Finn tackled him out of the ring and started beating his ass like he owed the Prince money until Adam, seemingly overtaken by the spirit of charity for once in his goddamn life, superkicked him right in the mouth. 

Roderick was in pain when he rolled back in the ring, he was angry, four years of pent up emotion rattling in his head. Pain, pain, pain, _pain_ , **pain** , he'd been stretched across the anvil and pounded flat since _2016_ and the metal was starting to crack under the irons, the heat was too much, and when Adam said his name something deep within him snapped in half, and the arm was out and the lariat flying before Roderick could even process that he'd just cracked Adam right across the jaw and knocked him flat. 

_'I'm going to break his back,'_ Roderick decided in that moment. He'd had enough of being lied to, enough of being deceived. No more. Never again. Adam Cole would never lie to his brothers, to his friends, to _Roderick_ ever again, because Roderick would put him in a wheelchair for the rest of his natural life and then he might hit him with another backbreaker for good measure.

But Roderick made one final mistake. 

He looked Adam in the eyes. At the tears welling up in them. At the nervous stammering of his name. 'Roddy, Roddy, Roddy, listen to me, Roddy'. 

Roderick Strong's heart nearly broke, and all of those emotions came like a flood, every love and hatred he had for Adam, the bond they'd forged not just in WWE, but on constant trips down the road for PWG, for NJPW, for ROH, the flights, the amtrak rides, the bus trips, the long car rides back to Florida, and in the deluge of emotion all Roderick could think was ' _oh god Adam please be okay we can fix this buddy it's alright I love you we're going to fix this we love you we're going to fix this'_ and on and on and on until he couldn't take it anymore. 

"I don't want this anymore, Roddy," Adam said, an uncharacteristic tremble in his normally cocky tone, absolutely deafening over the sound of the crowd. "I just want things to go back to _normal_." 

Back to normal.

As if there was ever a normal after this.

And yet Roderick, one last time, fell for the lie. 

On his hands and knees, Adam rambled on, 'this is all my fault,' 'I ruined everything', 'Roddy I'm sorry', until Roderick could barely even think. He let out a scream of frustration that he didn't know he'd been holding in, pacing the ring in front of Adam as his hair came out of its bun and framed his face, pointed down at the mat as if he couldn't bear the thought of looking Roddy in the eye. 

And then, he did something Roderick had never even thought Adam Cole was capable of. Since the day they'd met, Roderick would never have guessed the day would come that he would hear Adam Cole sob.

He _sobbed_. 

The dam broke, and Roderick dropped down to a knee in front of the man that he never should have trusted in the first place, that became his brother, and took it all in, grabbed two fistfuls of his long, curly hair and said 'no, it's my fault, this is my fault, we're gonna make this right,' even if it wasn't his fucking fault, he wasn't the one going around superkicking people he called his friends, but this was the only time Adam had ever shown vulnerability in front of Roderick Strong and for fuck's sake Roderick Strong was a _good_ _person_ , he wasn't the smarmy shitheel people thought he was and if his friend was hurting, then _**fuck**_ _,_ he had to **do something** about it. 

"I love you," Roderick said into Adam's matted locks, "you are my **brother** , I **love you** ," and he meant it. 

"I love you," Adam replied, and he _didn't._

They embraced, so tight that the dog tags Adam had given Roderick after their second War Games match dug into his sternum, so close that he could feel Adam's halting breaths on his neck until they evened out, that they could say things to each other that the camera wouldn't hardly pick up, words between brothers meant to heal all wounds. 

When Roderick stood, and took Adam's hand in his own, that was supposed to be the end of it. Roderick should have realized it wasn't, and when he finally did, when his mind caught up with reality for the first time in almost four years, everything happened in slow motion.

The tears were gone. The tremble was gone. In its place, cold, steely determination. None of the cocksure, sleazy braggadocio that had defined Adam Cole for his entire career. This was _malice_. Uncommon, unholy _malice_ , and before Roderick could even think of trying to do something, Adam had already decked him below the belt so hard that his mind went white and stars filled his vision as his legs gave out and his lungs struggled to take in a breath.

"Roddy, you are so _stupid._ " The words barely registered in his ears. 

" ** _Stupid._** " 

In the haze of pain and betrayal, he could barely hear the chain on the dog tags break.

"You're **dead to me.** " 

The boot to the face afterwards almost felt like mercy.

* * *

Roderick was still thinking about it in the gorilla position, years removed from the first time he stood in the Performance Center at Full Sail. Long before he knew Adam would join him, and then ruin him. 

He blamed Finn Balor for it all. Blamed Adam. Most of all, though, he blamed himself.

Marina had watched it all happen live. While Roderick made it home and lied in bed, taunted by his failure, she'd gotten his guy to get him new gear. Grey and red, with not a single marking but his own initials, his own name, and the C-shaped tear that had been his trademark on the indies, as far from the Black And Yellow that defined him for four years as he could get. She took care of Troy, whispered reassurances into his ear when he couldn't sleep at night, pressed kisses to his aching jaw and even iced parts of his body that she really shouldn't be touching when he's this fucking sore. 

Kyle doesn't answer his calls. Bobby checks in every morning and every night to make sure Roddy's eating, to let him know if he's heard from Kyle and ask if Roddy has (the answer is always no) and today, to offer Roddy luck for his NXT title shot tonight.

It all comes back to reality. 

His _new_ music plays. Not the stuttering, funky bass of the Undisputed Era, but a dire, desperate dirge in minor key and wailing harmonic tones, a ballad for the man that had entered NXT to fight for his family, and now entered it having lost the brotherhood that defined him, heralded by a low drone, the dying breath of a dream. As he steps into the big 'X' of the Capitol Wrestling Center stage, he looks at the ring, and at the man who he has to blame for his failures as a man, lest the guilt swallow him whole, who stands on the second turnbuckle of the opposite corner, looking over his leather-clad shoulder at Roderick like he's a demon from the pit of hell. 

He looks down, checks his gear, slaps his thighs, and then, he surges forward, letting out his pent-up emotion in a primal bellow as The Prince drops from his throne, shrugging off his jacket to reveal pale muscle and the 10 pounds of gold around his waist. Their eyes meet, and Roderick slows his pace, letting him know over the bridge of his own personal funeral march as it enters its apex. 

" **This is it, Finn!** " he says, stone-faced as the man in the ring, their eyes locked as they make it clear by their body language alone that only one man is walking away from this intact. This _is_ it. The Undisputed Era's final ride. 

Roderick has no illusions about winning this title. He can't, not as compromised as he is now. 

But he can hurt Finn Balor. 

And as he enters the ring, drops to his knees, and slaps the mat in anticipation, the last gasps of a tradition he embraced long ago, a personal brand, he doesn't care that the NXT title isn't going to be leaving wrapped around his waist tonight. 

All that matters is that Finn Balor is going to feel his pain, if only for a moment. 

And if by some miracle that pain gives him the title? Hell, the look on Adam Cole's face will be _so_ worth everything else that Roderick has been put through over the past four years, and the feeling of rage in his gut when Roderick demands that his first challenger be Kyle O'Reilly will sustain Roderick for the rest of his days. 

If.

Roderick rises, and throws his arms wide as he lets it all out with one last scream into an almost empty arena, with only a couple of dozen crew and coworkers standing in front of screens that will soon display at least a hundred amassed fans entertaining themselves with his agony from the comfort of their own homes, but for now covered by a single word, emblazoned in red and gunmetal.

**Strong.**

He's going to have to be to survive this, but he's been on the anvil for so long that he's not sure he's ever going to leave the forge, and when the iron cools and the metal hardens, Roderick is going to see if Adam Cole's spinelessness is as literal as people seem to think it is. 


End file.
